Colin Trevorrow broke out with the low-budget Sundance dramedy Safety Not Guaranteed, catching the attention of megaproducer Steven Spielberg, who hired him to direct Jurassic World. That film broke box office records, becoming the largest grossing non-James Cameron film ever released (at the time). Trevorrow was in line to direct Star Wars: Episode 9 before leaving that sequel over creative differences. His third directorial effort, The Book of Henry, was met with a lot of hate from both critics and audiences alike.

I still haven’t seen The Book of Henry, but while talking to Trevorrow about Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, a film he co-wrote and produced, I did have to ask him about a claim I saw him make on social media – that The Book of Henry is a “carbon copy of Star Wars: A New Hope.” His explanation was actually pretty interesting.Read More »

It’s now been six years since Kirby Ferguson released his Everything Is A Remix video series showing how the visual media of film and television have always borrowed from what came before them. Now a new video essay helps illustrate how this is also the case with storytelling across all sorts of media.

If you’ve ever had more than a passing interest in narrative storytelling, then you’ve probably heard of the concept of The Hero’s Journey. Coined by Joseph Campbell, it’s the general template for any given story where our hero ventures out from home on some kind of an adventure, encounters obstacles to overcome, and returns a changed person. A new video essay takes a cue from Community and Rick and Morty creator Dan Harmon to break this concept down into even simpler pieces that apply to all kinds of stories, and thus illustrates that all stories are the same at their core. Read More »